December 23, 2014

Today is Festivus, a holiday that sprang from the loins or our pop culture, specifically the TV show Seinfeld. Read more about it here. Two elements of Festivus … the airing of the grievances and incredible feats of strength.

Given it's a creation of pop culture of nebulous meaning ... Festivus seems an appropriate day to shut pressdog.com down. Bonus: It’s close enough to Christmas that everyone elbowing coworkers aside to get away from work and start the Bataan Death March of holiday travel may just give me the introvert ghost-away I am hoping for.

November 20, 2014

Some year-end thoughts, one draft, 45-minutes of typing on various forms of racing:

IndyCar -- Insert a Festival of Trepidation here as I talk about IndyCar.

Willy P (Will Power) won the title, which was good to see, because I think finishing P2 in the championship again would have made him a danger to himself and others. I like Will Power. He’s got that volatile streak in him that makes him a threat to go Double Bird and any moment. IndyCar needs more of that. Screw being polite! Flip people off. (Shout out to Sebastian Saavedra for showing the birds to Marco Andretti at Detroit in 2013!)

November 18, 2014

(L to R) AJ Foyt, Takuma Sato, Jack Hawksworth and Larry Foyt will team up for 2015.

Jack Hawksworth of Cullingworth, England, (70 miles northwest of Liverpool) has something on his resume few IndyCar drivers can boast: tractor driver.

During a trip to Iowa before the 2014 IndyCar race at Iowa Speedway, Hawksworth visited the third-generation family farm of Kyle Phillips near Knoxville.

pressdog: “When you went to that Iowa farm did they let you drive the tractor at all?"

Jack Hawksworth: “They did. They let me go in a straight line. I don’t think they trusted me to do any corners or anything like that. But I gave it gas full on the straight and got it up to about 10 miles per hour.”

Hawksworth: “I found it quite intimidating to drive, to be honest. There’s so much torque. I don’t think I’m qualified to drive one of those.”

While American farm tractors are typically around 150 horsepower with top “road gear” reaching maybe 25 mph, on July 18, 2015 Hawksworth will find himself more at home behind the wheel of a race car as he and his IndyCar mates take their 550 to 700 horsepower machines around Iowa Speedway at a top race speed of about 180 mph.

November 07, 2014

The concept of crowd-funding — using the internet in general and social media in particular to raise money for a personal or business enterprise — is on the rise. Forbes.com recently reported that crowd-funding worldwide in 2013 hit $5.1 billion, which is double the 2012 global total. (Details here.)

Race car drivers have previously dipped into the crowd funding market. In 2013 Shannon McIntosh's fans responded to a campaign by donating more than $11,000 to help get her a test in ARCA. (Details here.)

Shea Holbrook is among the latest to try crowd-funding. Shea just launched a campaign using darkhorsepros.com to asking fans to help her raise $30,000 to finance getting a drag racing license. She hopes to add a drag racing schedule to her road racing program in 2015.

October 31, 2014

THE MODERATOR: Welcome to today's IndyCar conference call. Earlier today the 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series schedule was released and features many highlights, including 17 race events, two new race venues, a total of six ABC and 13 NBCSN event broadcasts.

The diverse calendar of events, which features six ovals, six road courses, and four temporary street circuits, includes a total of 13 markets making a return to the calendar for 2015.

October 28, 2014

So the 2015 IndyCar schedule is allegedly coming out on Oct. 30. This is per Curt Cavin of the Indy Star. Fun-tastic.

BUT WAIT -- a glitch in the Matrix, a fly in the ointment -- somebody spotted something on a driver’s website that referenced an IndyCar race in Dubai perhaps on February 22, which, unless there’s a double-secret race before February 22, would make Dubai IndyCar’s season opener. IF it happens at all.

October 23, 2014

I was actually contemplating how cool it was that NASCAR had created big incentives for drivers to go for the win this year when this popped into my head: Helllooooooo, NEWMAN.

Both Ryan Newman and Matt Kenseth are winless this year, and if either wins the championship, the Festival of Rage, Chagrin, and UMBRAGE would be so delicious, that as a result I now want one of them to win, even though I picked Jeff Gordon in my bracket. No offense, Jeff!

Newman and Kenseth are two of eight still alive in the Chase, along with Joey Logano, Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon and Brad Keselowski. Everybody but Kenseth and Newman has at least one win.